Volusia Holding First Impact Fee Public Meeting Tonight

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DeLand, FL - Tonight (October 23rd) is when Volusia County will host the first in a series of four public meetings designed to explain impact fees and get comments from residents on how those fees should be handled moving forward.

Those meetings were ordered by the Volusia County Council earlier this month after complaints about those fees not having changed in many years led to county leaders pulling the half-cent sales tax referendum question off of next month's ballot, one which would've raised money for road and other infrastructure projects if approved by the voters.

Opponents have argued that county leaders have not wanted to call attention to impact fees because it might lead to developers paying more money, some of whom are large donors to the campaigns of several Council members.

Tonight's meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in the first-floor training room of the Thomas C. Kelly Administration Center in DeLand (123 West Indiana Avenue). It should last for approximately 90 minutes.

Two more sessions will take place the next two night at the same time. Tomorrow's event is at the Brannon Center in New Smyrna Beach (105 South Riverside Drive) and the one on Thursday is in the Deltona City Hall Commission Chambers (2345 Providence Boulevard).

The fourth and final session is October 30th at Daytona Beach City Commission Chambers (301 South Ridgewood Avenue).

Clay Ervin, the director of the county’s Growth & Resource Management Department, says they will gather all the comments from residents who attend the four meetings and present them to the Council during a future meeting, likely on November 13th.

The meetings are also designed to educate the public on the history of impact fees in Volusia and present information from a consultant study which was written up in 2016 but not presented to the Council until earlier this year.

Council members are expected to attend each meeting.

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